Between the shiny, millennial-centric brands delivering fresh drops through your letter box, the more established, cult buys and the indie outfits selling a fine line in ‘natural and organic’ products, the beauty landscape has never felt more cluttered.
To help you to navigate this brave new world of retinol, AHAs, jade rollers and double cleansing, WH beauty editor, Perdita Nouril, is here to try and test the new drops that are making their way into her (very full) bathroom, via her column, Beauty Dispatch.
Here, she’ll share the freshly released heroes that she loves: ready to let you know where to spend your skin and hair care cash. This time around, she tries Ghd’s brand new wet to dry styler.
Like most categories in beauty, hair styling tools isn’t exactly one you’d call thin on the ground. In fact, over the last few years, there’s been an explosion of really impressive gadgets from the Dyson Corrale to the Shark Flexstyle.
And yet just when you think there can’t possibly be room for improvement, scientists and engineers at Ghd have achieved the unthinkable with a wet-to-dry styler than combines your hair dryer and straightening tool in one.
Now, you’re probably thinking, hang on, didn’t these launch yonks ago? Well, you’d be right, they entered the beautysphere and then were swiftly forgotten about because they were, in a word, terrible (I still have flashbacks of scorching my hair to near death in the early noughties).
Thankfully, Ghd’s latest iteration houses 21 years of heated styling and drying expertise and combines the science of convection and conduction by harnessing what the brand are calling airfusion technology. What does this mean to non-sciency folk? In a nutshell, the tool is able to house both an airflow drying chamber together ( this is the part that looks like honeycomb) with their signature ceramic plates so that it dries and straightens simultaneously, and perhaps most importantly, with no damage.
So does it live up to the hype? Here’s how I got on when I put the Ghd Duet Styler to the test.
What is the Ghd Duet Style?
At first glance the Ghd Duet Style looks like a chunky hair straightener. Once you switch it on it comes to life with a low level hum, akin to your normal hairdryer, only much quieter.
It’s designed to be used like a hair straightener only it dries your hair at the same time. Ghd claim that the groundbreaking technology prevents any damage to your hair and that after undergoing tests, no thermal hair damage was detected after four passes through the hair. Good news for your ends, eh? Another pull of the Ghd Duet is that is uses 4 percent less energy than your standard hairdryer. A win, considering energy costs are through the damn roof.
Finally, there is also a super cool ‘shine shot button’ that once activated, turns it from a hair dryer tool into a styler so that if you want to, you can continue to straighten or wave your hair.
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How to use the Ghd Duet Style:
The good thing about this tool is that it’s not difficult to use. Simply section your hair off same as you would for blow drying, then clamp the hair at the roots and hold for 2-3 sections before sliding down slowly to the roots.
Ghd Duet Style: A review
Using the Ghd Duet Style was easy enough. I have long hair but it’s quite fine, which means it dries very quickly, so using the tool didn’t take longer that 10 minutes max.
I do recommend that you get into the habit of sectioning your hair off, as I tired to use it in a rush (aka didn’t bother with sectioning) and ended up with roots that were still damp. Not ideal when it’s 5 degrees outside.
The finished result was impressive, my hair felt bone dry and looked incredibly sleek. However, I tried and failed miserably to create any kind of wave in my hair, so I need to keep practicing on that front. It’s feels tricky to create waves purely because the tool is so wide.
In terms of timing, the process took the same amount of time as if I had used a hairdryer and then straightened it, so that was a bit of a bummer as I was hoping to cut down my style time. However, the upside to using the Ghd Styler is that it cuts out a considerable amount of heat damage as you’re only using one tool, a win win for my overall hair health.
Ghd Duet Styler: My verdict
With a price tag of £379 it’s not cheap. However, it does work brilliantly and it streamlines your routine. I also think if you’ve got damaged hair but can’t break up with your tools, this will really help to limit heat damage in the long run. It’s also brilliant for travel and it’s lightweight and can easily be thrown in your hand luggage or gym bag. Overall, I’m into it.
